UA effort may lead to safer food, water

A technology developed at the University of Arizona could prevent widespread illness and even death by quickly detecting microscopic pathogens in food and water.

The Innovis detection kit can produce test results for E. coli and other pathogens in 10 minutes instead of the hours or days current tests take. Also, testing can take place in the field, said Olin Feuerbacher, operations manager at Innovis Technologies.

Innovis is a business created by students in the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at UA's Eller College of Management.

The patented technology was developed by Indraneel Ghosh, a UA chemistry professor.

Testing methods now in use can take up to two days to produce results, and material to be tested must be sent to a lab, Feuerbacher said.

Quicker results could eliminate or minimize a repeat of situations such as last year's E. coli contamination of California spinach that resulted in three deaths and 205 confirmed illnesses.

The traditional culture-based testing, which grows the suspected pathogens in a lab using a sample, requires 24 to 48 hours for results, he said.

A second common test, the Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR, test takes six hours and requires lab facilities.

The Innovis kit will cost $35 per test. The 10-minute turnaround from starting the test to getting results means contaminated food can be identified before it is sent to the public, reducing illness and death and saving money.

The Arizona Department of Health Services provides accurate lab testing, but a faster, accurate field test would be welcome, said Will Humble, assistant director for public health awareness.

"We hope this one works, because it will save time and effort. And the quicker you can make the decision, the better you can protect people," Humble said. "Anything that helps get answers quicker so we can develop public health interventions in a quicker way is welcome to all of us."

Lab-based tests now used require from six to 48 hours and typically require a large volume sample to test, he said.

Existing field tests have a problem with incorrectly detecting pathogens that are not present.

"Right now we discourage the use of field devices because there are so many false positives coming out of the ones available now," Humble said. "One of the weakest links in the chain right now is field tests. If this one will fill the gap, we will embrace it."

Feuerbacher said the Innovis test kit is more than 99 percent accurate and has shown no problems with false-positive results.

Innovis team members Rachana Gollapudi, Alicia Reeves and Feuerbacher came across the zinc-finger technology when researching business opportunities in UA's Office of Technology Transfer.

The zinc finger biomolecule binds to the DNA of a targeted pathogen so it can be detected via a color change in the test kit.

About a month after the Innovis team decided to move forward with commercializing the technology, the California spinach contamination case hit the headlines, prompting the team to push ahead and focus on testing produce, water and meat, Reeves said.

The test kit can be used on irrigation water, crops in the field, produce when it is harvested and food when it is shipped. It can even be used to test food in restaurants, Gollapudi said.

The test kit must meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compliance tests before it can be marketed, Reeves said. The team has spoken with potential investors, and a number of labs have expressed interest in the product, she said.

The students will reap the profits from the business while UA and the professor get a piece of the action through licensing and royalties.

The technology also has applications in detecting and identifying a specific microbe, such as one that causes a disease in humans.